There are so many life-changing benefits of young people getting involved in sport.
Not only can sport help young people remain healthy and active, but it can also help with their mental wellness. Sport provides young people with an opportunity to make friends, socialise, and develop important life skills such as teamwork, discipline and perseverance.
Yet despite all these benefits, only 45% of young people in the UK are taking part in sport or engaging in physical activity for more than 60 minutes per day, which is the guidance from the UK Chief Medical Officer.
This lack of regular physical activity is a major contributing factor to one in four children being obese by the time they reach Year 6.
The Youth Sports Trust help equip, encourage and empower young people to enjoy sport.
The team at the Youth Sport Trust (YST) have a vision for the future that sees every child enjoying the life-changing benefits of sport.
They aim to achieve this by connecting with communities, running inclusive and innovative sports programmes, and by providing practical tools and resources to teachers and schools.
During the 2020/21 academic year, YST helped 220,413 young people enjoy sport through their programmes and helped train 12,015 teachers and coaches on how to deliver high quality inclusive sport and physical education.
The Youth Sports Trust planned a Three Peaks Challenge fundraising event during National School Sports Week
Before joining our team as Commercial Director at Everything Global, James Kyte was part of the Senior Leadership Team at Youth Sports Trust.
James keeps in touch with his friends at YST, and mentioned they were running an event to celebrate the theme of ‘belonging’ of National School Sports Week 2022. A team of YST staff and supporters were planning to come together as a team and take on the Three Peaks Challenge to help raise funds for the charity.
For anyone that might not be familiar with the Three Peaks Challenge, it’s a pretty epic feat. It involves climbing the three tallest mountains across England (Scafell Pike), Scotland (Ben Nevis) and Wales (Snowden) in a fixed timeframe.
Some experienced athletes attempt to visit and climb all three peaks within 24 hours, but most fundraising teams aim to complete the challenge in 2-3 days.
After hearing about YST taking part in the challenge, we wanted to find out more.
James set up a meeting between Everything Community and some of the senior team at YST, including Jen Rouse (Head of Commercial Development), Lesley Pallet (Buying Manager), Nikki Pancholi (Product and Sourcing Officer) and Helen Pearce (Fundraising and Business Support Officer).
It was great to hear more about the charity, their mission, and the great work they are doing to help empower young people to enjoy regular sport.
We also got talking about the upcoming Three Peaks Challenge and the ways in which Everything Community could help with this fundraising event.
Everything Community donated to help the fundraising target and provided goodie bags to help the volunteers.
The first thing we wanted to do was put together a customised goodie bag for all the YST staff and supporters that were taking part in the challenge.
We wanted to put together something that would be genuinely useful on their climb, so we provided 24 drawstring bags that contained a water bottle, thermos cup, protein bar, pen, torch, and power banks to help keep phones and other electrical equipment charged.
We also donated £250 through the YST fundraising link on Just Giving.
The team of YST staff and supporters embraced the spirit of National School Sports Week
Fully equipped with their goodie bags, the YST team started out on their challenge.
The challenge started well, with the team pulling together and getting everyone to the summit of Ben Nevis and back down again in style.
With a third of the challenge completed, there was a sense of enthusiasm and positivity for conquering Scafell Pike and Snowden.
But road closures, public transport, and the British weather made this more challenging than planned. A combination of circumstances meant the team of volunteers couldn’t quite make it to the summit of the other two mountains, but this didn’t detract fabulous experience. The event embraced the National School Sports Week theme of ‘belonging’, new friendships were formed and it was an incredibly memorable occasion for all involved.
And perhaps most importantly, the challenge was a great success on a fundraising front as well. The team blasted past their £18,000 fundraising target and raised almost £20,000 to help
“We couldn’t have hoped for more fabulous company and friendship during the challenge which will leave memories to last a lifetime and has currently raised almost £20,000 which will help us to make a difference to the lives of more young people through play and sport” Person X - YST
Does your charity need support?
Everything Community manages the social responsibility and community support initiatives of Everything Global.
If you’re a registered charity and want to talk about how we can potentially work together, we’d love to hear from you at hello@everythingcommunity.org
We’re keen on helping all charities and community causes where we can, but we prioritise requests from smaller charities and those that are local to the Leicester area.
More about the Youth Sport Trust
The Youth Sport Trust was founded in 1995, and has been helping young people enjoy the life-changing benefits of sports for over 25 years.
2022 saw the Youth Sport Trust launch their new strategy: Inspiring changemakers, building belonging, which aims to create a generational shift in attitudes towards sport and help build back young people’s health, happiness and resilience.
